“Alessandro?” he heard her murmur sleepily.
Gripping his hands, he went back into the bedroom. He found her lying in bed, her gorgeous curves covered only by a sheet. She sat up in surprise when she realized he’d been standing naked on the balcony. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said.
She swallowed, biting her lip. “Do you regret our time together?” she whispered. “Are you thinking about—Olivia?”
“No!” Shaking his head, he said the first thing that came to mind. “I’m thinking about the Mexico City deal. Wondering how our design team in San Francisco will update the Joyería designs once they take over.”
Alessandro closed his mouth with a snap, shocked at his own stupidity. He’d been so concerned about not hurting Lilley, he’d blurted out something he should never have revealed to anyone except his board of directors. If it became public, it would ruin everything. He’d given Joyería’s current owner, Miguel Rodriguez, some legally vague reassurances that he would keep the Mexican designers on staff and the studio in Mexico City separate from Caetani Worldwide’s offices in San Francisco, Shanghai and Rome. If Rodriguez heard about his plans to economize, the man could well cancel the deal and sell the company to a competitor.
Alessandro looked at Lilley sharply, but she seemed completely unaware of the import of the information he’d unthinkingly shared. She smiled, shaking her head.
“You always work, don’t you?” she said softly. “That’s why you’re so successful.” Her gaze grew troubled as she hugged a pillow over her breasts. “Maybe if I were more like you, I wouldn’t be such a screw-up.”
He frowned. “A screw-up?” he demanded. “Who said that?”
Her smile became sad. “No one has to say it. I came to San Francisco to start my jewelry business, then chickened out.” She looked down at the bed. “I’m not brave like you.”
He sat down beside her. “There are all kinds of bravery in the world, cara.” Reaching over, he lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You have an open heart. You trust people in a way I could not. And your jewelry is unique and beautiful. Like you,” he said huskily. Setting his jaw, he gave her a decisive nod. “You will start your business when the time is right. I know it.”
Her large brown eyes looked up at him with almost painful hope. “You do?”
“Yes.” He dropped his hand. “I failed many times, in many different businesses, before I made my first fortune. Selling children’s plastic bracelets, of all things.”
She gave an amazed laugh. “You? Selling plastic bracelets? I don’t believe it.”
He gave her a sudden grin. “It’s true. The trend exploded across America and I made my first million. I was determined to succeed. No matter how many times I failed, I wouldn’t give up.” He stroked her hair. “You are the same. You just don’t know it yet.”
“You think so?” she breathed, her eyes huge.
He nodded. “If it’s important to you, you’ll make it happen. Whatever it costs.”
“What made you so driven to succeed?”
His lips flattened. “When my father died, he left debts I had to repay. I dropped out of college and worked twenty hours a day.” He looked away. “I will never feel powerless again.”
“Powerless? But you’re a prince!”
“Prince of nothing,” he said harshly. “An empty title I inherited from a fifteenth-century warlord. The men of my family have always been corrupt and weak.”
“But not you.” Her clear eyes met his. “You are the leader of Caetani Worldwide. You built a billion-dollar company from nothing. Everyone loves you,” she whispered.
He felt uncomfortable with the adoration he saw in her eyes. “I’m nothing special,” he said gruffly. “If I can start a business, so can you. Start a business plan, work through the numbers.”
“That might be hard, since I read letters and numbers in the wrong order.”
“Dyslexia?”
She nodded.
“What is it like?”
“It’s different for different people. In my case the letters and numbers won’t stay put.”
He barked a laugh. “And you’re working in my file room?”
She gave him a sudden cheeky grin. “Now you understand why I was working late.” Her voice became wistful. “I’ve never been really successful at anything except making jewelry. Maybe that’s why my father thinks I’m hopeless at taking care of myself. He threatened to disinherit me if I don’t come back to Minnesota and marry one of his managers.”
“Disinherit you!” Alessandro pictured a hard-working farmer with a small plot of land in the bleak northern plains. “He wanted you to marry a manager on his farm?”
Lilley blinked, frowning at him. “My father’s not a farmer. He’s a businessman.”
“Ah,” Alessandro said. “He owns a restaurant? Perhaps a laundromat?”
Her eyes slid away evasively. “Um. Something like that. My parents got divorced a few years ago, when my mother was sick. The day she died was the worst day of my life. I had to get away, so I found … a job … with a distant relative. My cousin.”
She stumbled strangely over the words, looking at him with an anxiety he couldn’t understand.
“I’m sorry,” Alessandro said in a low voice. “My mother died a few years ago, and my own relationship with my father was always complicated.” Complicated was an understatement. His father, Prince Luca Caetani, had married Alessandro’s mother for her money, then spent it on his mistresses. He’d died when Alessandro was nineteen, leaving debts and an unknown number of bastards around the world. Alessandro was his father’s only legitimate child, the heir to the Caetani title and name, but every year some stranger came out of the woodwork, claiming blood ties and asking for a handout from the company Alessandro had built with his own two hands.
Just wait till you’re older, son, his father had gasped on his deathbed. You’ll be just like me. You’ll see.
Alessandro had vowed he would never be anything like his father. He was selfish, but not a monster.
Right?
“I actually thought about going back.” Lilley’s trusting eyes shone at him. “But now I know I won’t. You make me feel … brave. Like I can do anything. Risk anything.”
Alessandro’s heart gave a sickening lurch. He gripped his fists so tightly the knuckles turned white.
Lilley was half in love with him already. He could see it in her face, even if she herself wasn’t aware of it yet. If he kept her as his mistress, how long would it be before he obliterated her light completely? Until she, too, had a heart as dark and empty as night?
He’d crossed a line. He’d violated her innocence in a way he could never take back.
If that wasn’t the work of a monster, what was?
With an intake of breath, he turned away. In just an hour or two, dawn would break across the purple hills. But there could be no sunrise for Alessandro. He felt cold to the bone.
There was only one way to cut her loss. One way to leave her heart bruised, but not shattered. He exhaled, closing his eyes.
He had to let her go.
“It’s almost morning,” she said, sounding sad. She splayed her small hand against his chest. “In a few hours, I’ll go back to the file room. What about you?”
He opened his eyes. “Mexico City.”
Lilley took a deep breath. “Alessandro,” she whispered, “I want you to know that I—”
Turning to her almost violently, he put his finger against her lips. “Let’s not talk.” Pulling her down on the mattress beside him, he breathed in the scent of her, the intoxicating smell of sunshine and flowers. He gloried in her warmth and beauty for the last time.
“This has been the happiest day of my life,” she whispered. “I’m just sad to see it end.” She gave him a crooked smile. “In a few hours, you’ll forget I ever existed.”
He looked down at her. “I’ll never forget you, Lilley,” he said, and it was the truth.
“Oh,” she breathed. Relief and gratitude filled her eyes. She thought his words meant they might have a future. She didn’t know they were the death knell for any relationship they might have had.
She put her hand on his rough, unshaven cheek. “Then give me a kiss I’ll never forget.”
He looked at her full, rosy lips, and his whole body shuddered with need.
One last time, he told his conscience savagely. He would give her up at dawn. Set her free before he did any further damage to her soul.
Cupping her face, Alessandro kissed her, as if trying to burn the memory of her lips against his for all time. Tasting the sweetness of her mouth, he spread her lips wide, plundering her with his tongue. Pulling the pillow away from her body, he rolled her beneath him on the bed, covering her naked body with his own.
Alessandro looked down at Lilley’s beautiful face. He knew the bitter memory of the joy shining now in her sweet, joyful eyes, her strange trust and belief in his goodness would haunt him for all time. An ache like regret pierced his soul.
Then, closing his eyes, he pushed himself inside her.
CHAPTER FIVE
A MONTH later, Lilley felt sick as she sat in a hard office chair in the basement office of the human resources department. The fluorescent lights above the desk flickered and hummed as Lilley licked her dry lips, praying she’d heard wrong.
“What?” she croaked.
“I’m sorry, Miss Smith, but we must let you go.” The kindly older man on the other side of the desk shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I’m afraid Caetani Worldwide isn’t the right place for your skills.”
Fighting nausea, Lilley took a deep breath as grief and pain washed over her. She’d known this would happen, known she’d lose her job no matter how hard she tried. Effort couldn’t compensate for her slowness in filing numbers and letters that danced in front of her eyes.
Maybe she really was incapable of taking care of herself, just as her father said. Case in point: she’d slept with her boss, and then was surprised when Alessandro disappeared before she woke up on Monday morning and never bothered to contact her again. Exactly as he’d told her he’d do. Her throat suddenly hurt. She really wasn’t smart.
“I can assure you,” the HR director continued, “there’s a very generous compensation package.”
“I was too slow, right?” she whispered, blinking back tears. “I took too long to finish my work.”
The man shook his head, his ponderous jowls wobbling. He didn’t look as if he wanted to fire her. He looked as if he wished the earth would swallow him up beneath his desk. “You did a good job, Miss Smith. You were popular with the rest of the staff. Yes, you took longer than the other file clerk, but your work ethic—” He took a deep breath, tapping a file on his desk. “That’s neither here nor there.” His voice was clipped. “We will give you an excellent recommendation and I can assure you that you’ll find a job soon. Very, very soon.”
He started to explain the details of her severance package, but Lilley barely listened. The sick feeling was starting to win, so she focused on her breathing, staring hard at the little gray trash can on the floor by his desk. Fighting the desire to throw up into it.
“I’m sorry it turned out this way,” he said finally. “But someday you’ll be glad that …” He saw that she wasn’t listening and was clutching her stomach with one hand while covering her mouth with her other. He sighed. “Please sign this.” He pushed a paper towards her on the desk. Grabbing the pen he offered, Lilley skimmed the document—her father had drummed that much into her, at any rate—and saw she was basically promising not to sue the company for sexual harassment. Harassment?
She sucked in her breath. That meant it wasn’t her work that was at fault, but she was being fired by—
She cut off the thought, unable to bear his name. Scribbling her signature, she rose to her feet. The HR director shook her hand.
“Best of luck, Miss Smith.”
“Thanks,” she choked out. Grabbing the file he held out, she fled to the women’s bathroom, where she could be sick in privacy.
Afterward, Lilley splashed cold water on her face. She looked at her wan, green expression in the mirror. She tried to force a grin, to put the cheerful mask back in place that she’d worn for the last month while enduring teasing and innuendo about Prince Alessandro. But today, she couldn’t even smile.
Fired. She was fired.
Numbly, she walked to the elevator. She exited on the third floor and went to her desk in the corner of the windowless file room. Other employees had pictures of family or friends or pets hanging at their desks. Lilley had a lonely pink geranium and a postcard that her cousin’s wife, Carrie, had sent from Provence a few weeks ago. On the tidy surface of her desk, she saw someone had left a gossip magazine for her to find. Again.
Her body felt cold as she looked down at the latest issue of Celebrity Weekly. The cover had a picture of Alessandro in Mexico City, where he’d been living for the last month in his attempt to keep the Joyería deal from falling apart. But last week, Lilley’s cousin Théo had made a successful counterbid. It should have made her feel glad, but it didn’t. Her heart ached to think of how Alessandro would feel after failing—at anything.
At least she was used to it.
Her eyes moved to a smaller picture at the bottom of the magazine’s cover that had been taken at the Cannes film festival months before. Alessandro wore a tuxedo, looking darkly handsome, holding the hand of a beautiful blonde dressed in black. Olivia Bianchi.
Playboy Prince to Wed at Last, the cover blared. Someone had underlined the words with a thick black pen.
Ever since she’d been Alessandro’s date at the ball, she’d been paying for it. Some of her coworkers had worried Lilley might think too well of herself for briefly being their boss’s mistress. Well, she thought bitterly, no chance of that.
Lilley jumped as she heard a man clear his throat behind her. Turning, she saw Larry, a security guard she knew. Just yesterday, Lilley had given him advice about how to get ink stains out of fabric, something she’d dealt with fairly often as her cousin’s housekeeper. But today, his face was regretful and resigned.
“Sorry, Lilley. I’m supposed to escort you out.”
She nodded over the lump in her throat. She gathered up her geranium, the magazine, the postcard from Provence, her nubby old cardigan and the large bag of toffees she kept at the bottom of her desk for emergencies. She packed up her life in a cardboard box and followed the security guard from the file room, trying to ignore all the employees staring at her as she was escorted from the building in a walk of shame.
In the lobby, Larry checked her cardboard box for contraband—what did he think she might take? Pens? Copy paper?—and then took her employee pass card. “Sorry,” he mumbled again.
“I’ll be fine,” she whispered, and was proud she managed to leave the building without either crying or throwing up.
Numbly, Lilley took the bus home. As she reached her apartment, her cell phone rang. She glanced at the number. Nadia had missed all the action, so Jeremy must have told her the news. But Lilley couldn’t face her roommate’s sympathy right now. Or the suspicions Nadia had voiced lately, which Lilley was desperately trying not to think about: the reason for her frequent nausea over the last week.
Turning her phone to Mute, she threw it on the counter. She gulped down some dry crackers and water to help her stomach calm down, then changed into flannel pajamas and a pink fleece robe. Wrapping herself in her mother’s quilt, she lay down on the couch and closed her eyes, even though she knew she was far too upset to sleep.
She was woken by the rattle of her cell phone on the kitchen counter. Sitting up, she saw the deepening shadows and realized she’d slept for hours. Pulling a pillow over her head, she tried to ignore the rattle. The phone finally stopped buzzing, then after a brief pause, it rudely started again. Muttering to herself, Lilley got up and grabbed it. She blinked when she saw the out
-of-state number. Alessandro, she thought, still half confused by her dream, the dream she’d had over and over all month. She could still feel the heat of his lips against her skin. She swallowed.
“Hello?” she said almost timidly.
“Lilley Smith?” a jovial voice boomed at the other end. “You don’t know me, but your résumé has come to our attention, and we’d like to offer you a paid internship with our company in New York.”
By the time Lilley hung up the phone, her dreams about Alessandro were gone. She finally understood. He wasn’t just ridding her from his company. He was completely erasing her from his life.
Her eyes fell on the magazine, visible from the cardboard box on the kitchen counter. Snatching it up, she stared with narrowed eyes at the picture of Alessandro with Olivia Bianchi. The blond Italian socialite looked like a smug, satisfied Persian cat who’d just licked up a whole bowl of cream.
Another huge wave of nausea overwhelmed her. Tossing the magazine to the floor, she covered her mouth and ran down the hall. Afterward, her eyes fell on the brown paper bag that sat ominously on the sink, like a loaded gun. Nadia had bought it for her days ago at the drugstore, and Lilley had scrupulously ignored it.
She couldn’t possibly be pregnant. They’d gone through boxes of condoms! They’d used protection every single time, all weekend long.
Except …
She froze. Except that one time. In the shower.
Wide-eyed, she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.
She exhaled. How could their affair have ended so badly? She’d fallen asleep so happily in Alessandro’s arms, foolishly believing they might have a future. Then she’d woken up alone. Wrapping herself in a bedsheet, she’d called his name teasingly as she went downstairs. Instead, she’d discovered only his housekeeper. “The prince has been called away,” the woman said stiffly. “Abbott will drive you back to the city.” She’d handed Lilley the red gown, mended and pressed, and served her eggs, coffee and toast at the same table where Lilley had enjoyed that joyful, sensual breakfast with Alessandro just the day before. The chauffeur had driven her back home without a word. Lilley’s cheeks still burned to remember.
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